


A Fate Foretold

by thedevilchicken



Category: Original Work
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Collars, High Fantasy, M/M, Public Sex, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:46:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27906187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: The Oracle of Glass told him he'd have twenty years of unrivaled power before his defeat at the hands of a champion.This is not at all what Vithral thought she meant.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character, Seemingly Virtuous Hero Adored by the People He Saved/Villain He Defeated
Comments: 6
Kudos: 70
Collections: Consent Issues Exchange 2020





	A Fate Foretold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheeon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheeon/gifts).



The problem with prophecies is you can get so caught up in them that you can't see the wood for the trees. Or the truth for the dense layers of crypticism, as is Vithral's case. 

The Oracle of Glass told him, twenty years ago, that he would fight in many wars and he would conquer many nations and he has done exactly that. The Oracle told him he would have everything he wished for, but his reign would end at the hands of a champion. He didn't mind that, he'd decided, as he watched her in the mirror; he found it was better to live bright and strong and hard than live a long life scrubbing floors in some high lord's castle. The high lord in question was his father, so the rumours went - his father was Grithain, King of Kreveth, and he'd have rather died right then and there than serve him for one moment more. He couldn't think of anything he viewed with more distaste.

So, he's waged wars and conquered nations, he's laid low kings and toppled shrines to gods to whom he's never prayed. He's ridden with his armies into lands whose names, in his now distant youth, he hadn't even heard of. He did hear, though, over the years as they passed, of the champion of Ythrin, the servant of the star-priests who beat back all who challenged him. He heard of the star saint, the shining warrior of the moonlight city that lay in the cold, dark mountains to the north. Their saint had protected them from plunder since before Vithral was born and he knew, in his heart of hearts, that Aelen of Ythrin was the man who'd topple him from his high throne. 

He'd built that throne inside the castle in whose shadow he'd been born so long ago, bastard son of the War-King of Kreveth. He'd built it from the bones of kings and generals and champions he'd slain. He supposed either that this star saint would kill him or else his bones would find a place back there across the seas, down from the mountains, inside his keep with all the others.

With excitement pounding in his veins such as he hadn't felt in years, they set off north to lay siege to the city of Ythrin. With a smile on his face, he took to the battlefield outside their moonlit gates. And when Aelen emerged, he asked himself, _Is this their champion?_ Out loud, he roared, "Who is this child you send to face me?" He seemed thin and pale, not even thirty years old. It couldn't be him, their star saint, lauded warrior, protector of their faith, and Vithral felt the burn of anger in his heart at that deception. But then, on the field where the two of them would meet in single combat and decide the city's fate, the star saint drew his sword.

The sword glowed. The sword _burned_. Its long blade lit the battlefield in a bright, clear blue; it lit the battlefield with the stark, cold light of starfire, come to life straight out of myth. It seemed to steal the air from Vithral's lungs as he strode toward their champion through the falling snow. It seemed to chill his blood more than the snowy air of Ythrin's lasting night. The star saint's face was calm, but his pale eyes shone. And as they met there, blade to blade, as their swords sung, as they danced, Vithral knew he wasn't disappointed. As they fought, he understood that he was thoroughly outmatched. For his twenty years atop the throne to end by this great blade, by this great fighter, that was more than he could ask. It was his fate fulfilled.

He believed that Aelen would kill him. As he knelt defeated in the dirt outside Ythrin's high walls, in their eternal moonlight with the city-nation's banners flying proud and high, he believed Aelen would strike him dead. He didn't. The high priest of Ythrin came forth from the city, long robes caught in the freezing breeze, and passed his judgement as Vithral bled into the snow: Aelen would take him as his slave instead. That was one way for his reign to end, he thought, as Aelen called on all the stars above to seal the collar at his throat. The burning sword he held seemed almost to come alive; one tendril of it flowed like liquid from his hand and circled Vithral's bloodstained neck. Part of the sword that had sounded his defeat came to signal his enslavement.

The gods in the stars themselves had decreed his fate, it seemed, as the collar glowed and seemed to sear his skin with cold. He had no strength left in him to defy it, and so he didn't fight when Aelen hauled him to his feet and dragged him from the battlefield. He didn't fight when Aelen took him home. 

Vithral is a tall man. His father was taller; they say Verinal, the first War-King of Kreveth, was descended from the giants, and that Grithain was much like him. They say Verinal made his laws with the blow of a hammer that could have knocked the sun out of the sky and that Grithain, their eleventh king, was his very likeness. Vithral is tall, though; he towered over the small men of the City of Stars who they passed on their way through the streets that day, and he towers over Aelen, too. Aelen stands a full head shorter, his hips and shoulders narrower, his leanly muscled thighs only as thick as Vithral's strong arms are. He seems younger by ten years or more, with the star-silver hair and moon-pale skin that all Ythrini have, so near to translucent that the blue blood in him stands out like veins in marble. Vithral should have been able to beat him, he thought, through the mind-fog of his injuries, as he stumbled, as his skin crawled with shame that his prophesied death hadn't been death at all. At the time, he didn't understand.

Vithral is tall and before he came to Ythrin, he dressed all in black and gold to match his dark eyes and his sun-bright hair. The first thing that Aelen did once they were alone inside his rooms, inside the silver tower of the church, was lay him down and strip the black clothes from him. He burned them in the hearth as Vithral watched. And then he dressed the wounds that he'd inflicted, and he washed the blood he'd spilled from Vithral's skin.

"You'll wear this," Aelen said, and he passed him what he's still wearing now, after all this time. It was a piece of shimmering red fabric, though there wasn't much of it; there was hardly enough to pass around his waist at all, hardly enough that when he shakily knelt and pulled it down low across his hips the hem would hang down far enough to hide the tip of his soft cock. Aelen seemed pleased, though, and took the silver pin from his own cloak and crouched close by to fasten the fabric. His cold fingers brushed Vithral's warm skin and made him shiver. Aelen smiled as he rose up again. 

"I've never had a prize before," he said, and he reached up to brush Vithral's long gold hair back from his face. He tucked it back behind one ear and tilted up his chin with his chilly fingertips. He ran his chilly thumb over Vithral's lips then down over his throat as a thoughtful crinkle formed at his brow. "They always make me kill them. I wonder why they gave me you?" 

Vithral didn't find that reassuring. And when he tried to move his hands, tried to tear the pin from at his hip and bury it in Aelen's throat, the silver collar at his neck began to glow, and began to burn. He cursed under his breath and sat back on his heels as Aelen tutted at him. He understood: his moment for struggle had been before the star-priests' gods had bound him. 

"You'll sleep here," Aelen told him, and gestured to the bed. 

"Where will you sleep?" Vithral asked. 

"Also here," he replied, perhaps a little regretfully. "This was such a surprise, I haven't had time to organise quarters in the House of Thralls." 

So they slept that night in the same bed, though Vithral was unsure how the Ythrini told their day from night, and when he tried to move his hands toward Aelen's neck, thinking of how easily he might snap it, the collar burned again. He turned away and closed his eyes and told himself he would not live his life in some enclosure made for Ythrini slaves. He sighed, and then he slept; only his injuries made that easy. 

In the morning, Aelen took him down the winding staircase to the dining hall. It was a monastery of sorts in which Aelen lived, it seemed - an annexe to the Church of Stars, and all the pale-eyed monks in their silver-grey habits pretended they weren't looking at the two of them. When Vithral shivered as he ate there in the icy-cold room, Aelen took off his thick cloak and wrapped it tight around his shoulders while Vithral frowned and wondered why. And once they'd eaten, he took him out into the courtyard where the paladins trained. Wrapped up mostly naked in his borrowed cloak, Vithral watched them; when Aelen drew his sword, when he moved with it, his silver-blue eyes seemed to shine a little brighter. As he watched, as Aelen twisted and turned, as he leapt, as his long white hair swirled in the snowy air around him, he saw how he'd beaten him; that gods of the stars to whom the city prayed had made Aelen perfect. Vithral was unsure if what he felt was jealousy or awe.

Three days passed in that way, as Vithral followed the star saint in his life around the monastery. Three nights passed, sleeping by his side in his bed at the top of his tower. Vithral's wounds began to heal with Aelen's careful care. The fourth day came, and Aelen braided Vithral's long, gold hair, tender as a lover though he understood what revolt would mean. Then, that fourth night, the star-priests sent for Aelen; when he went to their hall, to their celebration feast, he took Vithral with him. He understood that his presence formed part of their summons, too.

There were three other slaves present, from what he could tell: one woman in a flowing red dress so thin that he could see straight through it, and two men; one wore a tunic belted at the waist and one was already obviously naked, kneeling at his master's feet. The woman was a beautiful flame-haired Tarqui, tattoos winding their way across her skin like vines that he could see through her gauzy dress. Vithral had had a woman like her once, back when his army had taken Tarqua, before he'd slain their king, or maybe after. He wondered if that was what they wanted him to do that night, to entertain them. He wondered if that was why they'd kept him alive.

"Do as they say," Aelen told him, and a chill ran through the collar at his neck and straight down his long spine. He felt Aelen's will, and knew the bright, cold burn he'd feel if he refused.

When the high priest called him forward, to the high seat on the dais that was almost but not quite a throne, he went. When he told him, "Kneel," he knelt. And when the priest swept his gown open to reveal his turgid cock, he sucked him. When the high priest came inside his mouth, he spat it out onto the floor. 

"I would have thought you understood the situation, Conqueror of Nations," the high priest said, still sitting there, his softening cock still bare. "For once, you have been conquered. Your heathen hordes will not take our holy city. And you will learn your place." He glanced away, back over Vithral's shoulder. His eyes narrowed. "Aelen?" he said.

Aelen came forward. His master came forward. There was a cup in his hand that he put to Vithral's lips, and he couldn't help but drink from it. And afterwards, even without the collar there around his neck, he couldn't have said no. 

"This is your reward for your many years of dedication," the high priest said to Aelen, as he gestured grandly down at Vithral's kneeling form. "This is your prize as the stars' truest servant. Thank them, Aelen. Show them how pleased you are to accept their gift to you." 

When Aelen pushed him down onto his hands and knees, he didn't struggle. When Aelen pushed the shimmering red fabric up over his arse, he felt his cock begin to stiffen. And when Aelen pressed his cold, slick fingertips against his rim, he groaned out loud. His cock throbbed hard. If he'd had the words to beg for more, he would have. If he'd had the words to beg for death, he might have done that, too.

Aelen's fingers pushed inside him, likely two of them from the stretch he felt, chilly enough to make his hot hole tense up tight around them. He spread his knees a little wider. He sank down low onto his forearms against the stonry star-church floor, his bare arse in the air for all gathered there to see. The mighty war-king was brought down low and his face burned with the shame of it, with the pale eyes of the star-priests watching as their champion so claimed him. Aelen opened him, slicked him, prepared him for his cock with touches gentle as a lover's. And then, at last, as his balls ached, as his cock throbbed, Aelen pressed his thick tip to his hole. Aelen's length began to penetrate him, slowly, deeply, so cold inside him that Vithral's next breath in seemed to tremble. 

When Aelen came, he came inside him, with a groan of bone-deep pleasure. When Aelen came, that groan made Vithral's cock leak moisture from the tip like he might come himself at any moment from that point. When Vithral came, it was over Aelen's chilly hand, into his palm, that he brought to Vithral's mouth for him to lick clean for him, and he did so. And once Aelen had softened there inside him, he pulled out and swept the fabric down again over his come-slicked arse. Vithral could feel it leaking from him, down between his thighs, toward his balls, to splatter against the church's floor. 

"Very good," said the high priest. "The gods will be pleased with you, Aelen. As we are." 

And when Aelen withdrew, when they went through the church, into the monastery and up the stairs to his small room, he took a cloth and cleaned him slowly. He fingered Vithral's hole to clean his come out of him, until his cock was stiff again. All Aelen had to do was purse his lips and blow across his tip to make him come. He'd have liked to have killed him then and there; what he did was beg him to have him, and Aelen happily obliged. 

The Oracle gave him a choice, as was her way before he shattered her mirror and so shattered her: twenty years of power, or a long and quiet life. He chose the former. 

Twenty years have come and passed; now, his power has ended, but not with death and glory. His power has ended with a man whose fame is myth and whose life the stars themselves sustain, who keeps him as a prize. All the good that he can say is Aelen keeps him in his room and not the House of Thralls. Aelen keeps him, because he is adored.

When he goes down on his knees, Aelen smiles at him. Vithral wonders if one day that will no longer feel just like a shard of the Oracle's mirror has lodged deep inside his chest.

The Oracle of Glass was right; a champion defeated him. Now he lives with what that means, with Aelen's collar at his neck.


End file.
